President of Federal Reserve Bank of New York To Give Willis Lecture

By Jeff HannaMarch 22, 2010

William C. Dudley, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, will present the seventh biannual H. Parker Willis Lecture in Political Economics at Washington and Lee University on Thursday, April 1, at 5 p.m. in the Stackhouse Theater, Elrod Commons.

The title of Dudley’s presentation, which is free and open to the public, is “Economic Outlook for 2010.” It is sponsored by W&L’s Williams School of Commerce, Economics, and Politics and the departments of economics and politics.

Dudley became the 10th president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in January 2009, succeeding Timothy F. Geithner who became Secretary of the Treasury. Dudley is credited with playing a central role in the Fed’s response to the financial crisis, helping to design and implement the central bank’s emergency lending programs.

As chief of the New York Fed, Dudley supervises five of the seven largest U.S. banks and serves as the vice chairman and a permanent member of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the group responsible for formulating the nation’s monetary policy.

Dudley was executive vice president of the Markets Group at the New York Fed, where he also managed the System Open Market Account for the FOMC. The Markets Group oversees domestic open market and foreign exchange trading operations and the provisions of account services to foreign central banks.

Prior to joining the Bank in 2007, Dudley was a partner and managing director at Goldman, Sachs & Company and was the firm’s chief U.S. economist for a decade. Earlier in his career at Goldman Sachs, he had a variety of roles including a stint when he was responsible for the firm’s foreign exchange forecasts. Before he joined Goldman Sachs in 1986, he was a vice president at the former Morgan Guaranty Trust Company. Dudley was an economist at the Federal Reserve Board from 1981 to 1983.

A 1974 graduate of New College of Florida, he received his doctorate in economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1982.

Dudley serves as chairman of the G-10 Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems of the Bank for International Settlements. He is a member of the board of trustees of the Economic Club of New York. He was a member of the Technical Consultants Group to the Congressional Budget Office, 1999-2005.

Previous Willis lecturers have included Frederic S. Mishkin, a former member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; Dr. Marvin Goodfriend, formerly senior vice president and policy advisor, The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond; J. Alfred Broaddus Jr. ’61, past president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond; and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, who was a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors when he gave the lecture in 2004.